Being Broke Is Expensive, Part I
“Empty pockets never held anyone back.
Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”
I’d
never considered the question, but I suppose I was. As an abandoned baby from
Turkey, I can only guess as to the economic situation of my birth mother and/or
father. I was adopted seventeen months later by an American couple. He was in
the Navy and they were stationed in Turkey and unable to have children at the
time.[1]
In
the military many needs are provided for the one who serves and for his or her
dependents. This includes health care, housing, and reduced prices for goods
and services. I remember at the age of ten my mom taking my brother and me to
Saturday catechism classes and from there we would walk to the base theater and
watch two movies for free until about 4:00. It was free childcare for my mom
every Saturday. She might meet us before the movies and get us lunch at the
base cafeteria. Popcorn was ten cents. Sodas and candy weren’t much more. I did
this every Saturday for about a year. (To this day when I see movie credits, I
want to have popcorn.)
Other
services were provided for military dependents like art classes or sports and
to my knowledge all of these activities were at a reduced price or free. When
we moved to another military base, movie prices were an astronomical 25 cents.
Yet as a kid almost everything in my life was doubly-provided for – first from
my parents, then from the military.
Yet
despite all this, something was rotten in paradise. My dad almost always worked
two jobs. He would leave the house many nights to teach English to Japanese
adults. When we left Japan and moved to California, both parents worked. Between those two stops we lived in Indiana
with my grandparents for a few months while my dad stayed free of charge in a
small apartment called Bachelor Officer’s Quarters (BOQ). Yet despite both
parents staying rent free, my mom felt the need to get a job for those few
months. I also remember her complaining that her own parents wouldn’t give her
gas from the gas tank they had on their farm and a depressing conversation
about money troubles she was having. I don’t remember the details, but I
remember how hopeless I felt.
There
was another more significant sign. Every once in a while, after my parents gave
me money or I had earned it, they would question me about where the money went.
Most of the time, I didn’t know. Honestly. I really couldn’t recall where my
money went. Sometimes I knew I had spent it on comic books, but most of the
time I really couldn’t remember. These were often tense conversations. There
were two underlying problems with these conversations:
·
first, I could not make an account of my
spending; and,
·
second, though my parents berated me for
wasting money, they never, not even once, told me how I should handle money.
I
never heard words or phrases like “invest,” “delayed gratification,” or even
“save.” They just told me I wasn’t good with money. So, then I would stop
spending for a while or, amazingly, give away the things I had bought thinking
that would undo what I had done, but eventually I would go back to my old
habits.
If
I had any philosophy about money at all…and I don’t think I did…it was, “If I
have money, I can spend it. If I don’t, I can borrow it.”
I
may have picked this up from my parents. They seemed to spend money when they
had it and had lots of bills when they didn’t.
To be honest, I’m not sure. But I do know that birthdays and Christmases
were often extravagant affairs. In addition, they had four strong, active,
healthy boys, all of whom ate lots of food, drank lots of milk, and had lots of
needs and wants. Of the four, I may have been the most ambitious. I mowed
lawns, babysat, and delivered newspapers starting at the age of 13. When I
turned 17, I got a job at McDonalds (though that didn’t work out so well; I was
ambitious, but I could also take the path of least resistance, which isn’t a
good trait in the fast-food industry…or any job). But from the age of 13, I
never stopped working. I might also add that I’ve been very fortunate and have
never been out of work for more than two-and-a-half weeks, unless it was by
choice, for my entire life.
And
yet, I have almost always been broke.
Even
when I was married, there were financial struggles though we both had full-time
jobs. Two people who are not good with money are not going to suddenly become
one who is good with money. (More on this later.)
Here
are some of the financial lowlights (not highlights) of my life:
·
defaulting on a student loan simply
because I did not provide a change of address and paying thousands of extra
dollars in penalties over a period of years
·
having to work fifty hours in one week
just to be able to buy tires for a car that was almost as old as I was
·
having people I knew see me going through
trash cans to get recyclables
·
constant stress with my kids over
supplying basic needs and not-so-basic wants
·
always, always, ALWAYS having to look for
sales, discounts, and bargains not out of thrift, but out of necessity
·
standing in a Wal-Mart wondering if I
could afford a $2. mini tube of toothpaste
·
realizing I had not saved any money for my
kids’ college
·
not being able to live where I wanted
·
not wanting to go to a college reunion
from embarrassment that I was in worse financial shape than I was when I was in
college (when I was also broke)
·
having the lack of money be a constant
problem throughout my life no matter how much I earned
·
realizing that I was worth more dead than
alive.
This
blog and subsequent blogs will be about my financial journey. That journey has
been largely an unhappy one and for the last three years it all culminated in
one of the most difficult periods of my life. During those three years I would
be filled with daily anxiety, fights with my kids, feelings of disappointment
and worthlessness, fractured relationships, limited choices, and, at times,
uncontrollable sobbing at how my life came to this point. In addition, even
when I did my best, events seemed to conspire against me. This is not a pretty
story and, as of this writing, it is an unfinished story. But hopefully it will
be a helpful one.
Through
it all and at this point, I have learned two things that help me to Get Started
and Keep Going:
·
I survived this difficulty as I have
survived many others, and
·
I can change myself and thus change my
life.
[1] Shortly after
adopting me, my mother got pregnant and had three more children over the next
ten years.
